“Encryption is inexorably tied to our national interests. It is a safeguard for our personal secrets and economic prosperity. It helps to prevent crime and protect national security." – A report from the bipartisan House Judiciary Committee & House Energy and Commerce Committee

The Senator Defending Your Privacy Is Fighting for His Political Life

In June of 2014, Senators Mark Udall, Ron Wyden and Rand Paul offered a rare show of election-year unanimity when they penned a joint statement arguing that “it is more important than ever to let Congress and the administration know that Americans will reject half-measures that could still allow the government to collect millions of Americans’ records without any individual suspicion or evidence of wrongdoing.”

Udall and Wyden, both Democrats, and Paul, a presumed contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, declared, “It is time to end the dragnet—and to affirm that we can keep our nation secure without trampling on and abandoning Americans’ constitutional rights.”

Essential to that initiative, the senators suggested, is “a groundswell of public support for reform.”

Just five months later, the strength of that groundswell will be tested in Colorado. Udall, the senior senator from that state, is in the fight of his political life with Republican Congressman Cory Gardner. It’s a brutal, high-stakes battle, and polls suggest Gardner has a slight advantage.

If Udall loses, “it would be a significant loss for the movement” to hold the NSA to account and to renew the privacy rights of Americans, says Laura Murphy, who heads the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union.

One thought on “The Senator Defending Your Privacy Is Fighting for His Political Life”

This is possibly the only useful thing Udall has done in Washington. He could have campaigned on this but has barely eluded to it. He has run such a relentless, shockingly negative, single-issue campaign that, if he loses, he has no one to blame but himself.

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